As generally known, hats provide many benefits to the wearer, including shade to protect the user's head from the direct rays of the sun. Such shade reduces glare to the wearer's eyes, protects certain areas of the wearer's body from sunburn, may reduce the effects of heat to the wearer, etc. In other instances, the hat may protect the wearer from rain, sleet, snow, and other precipitation, and/or may provide protection from the cold, wind, etc.
While the sun's rays to some degree are blocked from the wearer's head, radiant energy is absorbed by the hat and is generally conducted through the crown of the hat into the interior cavity of the hat, thereby heating the wearer's head. In conjunction with such heat being absorbed, heat generated by the wearer's body radiates outwardly from the head, which can be somewhat trapped by the crown portion of the hat and retained in close proximity to the wearer's head. Therefore, the wearer is sometimes faced with the dichotomy of wearing a hat to protect from certain conditions, such as rain, wind, glare, sunburns, etc., only to result in an increased body temperatures to the wearer due to the heat absorbed and retained by the crown.
Several conventional hats have been provided with ventilating holes through the top and/or side walls of the crown for accessing the interior cavity, or the crown was constructed out of mesh to reduce this buildup of heat. Unfortunately, such efforts have had limited success in eliminating the problem of heat buildup within the interior of hats, while creating further problems such as diminishing the ability to protect the wearer from other conditions, such as rain, wind, etc.